What comes First? - 5 min Post

It seems as if a focus on preschool language development is key in this Education week article.

I liked the reference to vocabulary , vocabulary , vocabulary which we has seen in the studies about the word deficits that learners from poverty are coming to schools with. The whole thing need to feel like play celebrate imagination. Oral language is far more cognitively natural than written language and a place to concentrate for sure.

My quick ideas for doing this in preschool in a digital age would be to have things like

• skype/hangout to school
• film a play and play it back
• some words on tvs not for the kids but to stimulate teachers into trying to weave new talk into a day

Building ELLs' Literacy Early Is Crucial - Education Week

Looking back

I am always in a hurry for people to adopt technology for what it does to help us (to make us better). Allows us to share learn and create. Sure there are those times when we could do with stepping back from technology to breathe in the fresh air and get real. Most of the time I think people aren't: moving quickly enough, adopting quickly enough or coming to terms quickly enough. I came across this reminder  of a survey conducted in 1998 at my school.  At that time half the staff without a computer at home.

We have come a long way.

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Ulearn Roundup

The best thing about Ulearn for me this year was that feeling of a community working together.
Educators are a friendly bunch and there were great moments when the people around breakout tables 
added to and complimented what the Presenters had to say and do. 

Facilitators

Facilitators like Mark Osborne (http://theopensourceschool.blogspot.co.nz/ http://osborne.kiwi.nz/) and Amanda Signal (http://heymilly.blogspot.co.nz/) had alot of involvement from the teachers attending their workshops. 

In Mark's workshop he used  a collection of what research says improves learning. I like the simplicity of this idea with the effect size stripped away but how to be effective left. 

My "to do" from Mark's workshop is to make these visible somewhere in my learning environment and to try to make this a "theory in action" rather than an "espoused theory."


 


Amanda was working with a large group of teachers using the animation programme scratch. When I came into the room every one was hard at learning and when I consider the collection of  the effective above Amanda's workshop was a great example of many of these theories in action. 

• Working at their own pace
• Creating and using worked examples
• Learning co-operatively
• Teaching each other skills
• Guided and independent practice etc

Amanda had a great site she used with some starter tasks (or fun in other words.) https://sites.google.com/site/ulearnscratch/

I have had and seen alot of super learning using Scratch and Amanda's wasn't the only session looking at scratch unfortunately I missed Bob Bottomley's one but am pleased to see people getting in behind the kind of learning Scratch promotes, at Ulearn.

My "to do" from Amanda's workshop is to work with scratchers again at my school this term and to connect with the other educators scratching at learning.

Bob Botto

Challenges Teachers see...

What the teachers of Hamilton view as the challenges facing them.
I was a little surprised by what they mentioned. Access to working technology still seems to be a challenge as does time. Have a quick look at the video to pick up the rest.

Laughing on Purpose

Earlier this year I went to the ICOT thinking conference. One of the workshops was not at all what I expected. It was on Laughter.
I had thought it was going to be about the importance of humour in the classroom for community; rather it had a interesting take on Laughter and its role in our lives. Helen Thyrvin led the session spending time outlining the benefits of laughter and then preparing us for a session of laughter yoga.

"You don’t laugh better if you think but you think better if you laugh."

and

“For laughter you have to leave you head behind”

At the end of the session I was in a room full of people giggling. How immature. How Naive. What a waste of precious time. But this is is the big So What I felt better for escaping my  slightly serious nature and even thinking about it makes me feel good, feel better to this day. Check out the video at the bottom infectious laughter.


There are Laughter Clubs even











Key components of a Laughter Programme

• Playfulness
• Deep breathing
• Movement
• Eye contact

You Need to drink water afterwards

Motion Creates Emotion how can laughter help

• Coping strategies
• Pain relief
• Fighting depression
• Team building
• Problem solving

The science of happiness -



Links
http://www.gwengordonplay.com/pdf/laughing_for_no_reason.pdf






Doctor Madan Kataria - stress busters
toothbrush between teeth not allowed to let lips touch
Some Supporters
Dr. Lee S. Berk
Dr Hunter Patch Adams
Dr Michael Miller.

Daniel Pink - playful leaders that promote innovation and creativity

Hiring - we should be hiring the person with the best attitude not necessarily the best skills.

Tweets–They’ve got to mean something

Twitter is different way of writing: Recently I received a mention from a man I have a great deal of respect for. It said …

As result of this I have been reviewing why Sam would say this.

I Click, Publish, Send, Upload, Tweet and Chat.  My thoughts, ideas, images, voices, opinions are public and read by my PLN and searchers. I try to stay involved in this stream of information because I value it. I put tweets and posts into this stream to express what I am thinking to those who I would like to hear me. When I am reading observing or learning from this stream; putting back makes me feel like a true participant. I have always thought myself an OK writer but never a good editor.

@Samjarman made me realise I shouldn't just say anything, in any form I like; when others are going to read it. The implications for me are important enough to make this post necessary.

What had Sam seen in my tweets?

 

“So there is someone reading my tweets and they want something to be there”

My thinking is that the following might be important:

• Consider literary discipline to communicate effectively within 140 chars ie tighter not looser.
• Punctuation and intonation are my friends.
• Consider what the audience will need to understand what the tweet means.
• What purpose does the tweet have beyond self expression.

I like the idea of action: “Don’t think Do” Ewan McIntosh, “Ready, Fire, Aim” Michael Fullan and “Planning is Guessing” Jason Fried @jasonfried. These ideas are about the importance of doing.

What I am seeing is that audience and peers create a standard though under which efforts and actions will quickly try to navigate, realign and improve. This is the aim part that Fullan talks about. I hope that  the firing off of Tweets has help me aim via feedback.

On the bright side
I am motivated to get better at this so feel free to follow me @davein2it

Links:
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9132410/Twitter_Tips_How_to_Write_Better_Tweets
http://smallbiztrends.com/2010/01/how-to-write-better-tweets.html

Pilgrimage to Thinking - Why do it?

Having travelled for 36 hours to attend the international conference on thinking in Belfast I have been both jet lagged and  tired. It has been a fantastic antidote to that time in the air. The first day included a group presentation led by Robert Swartz who is a leader at the National Center for Teaching Thinking.

Part of his session looked at what strategies can make thinking explicit.
One of the propositions with regard to thinking skills  was that they require a context and process in which to be placed.


Robert used a Thinking Map or organiser to look at Part Whole relationships

Determining Part-Whole
Relationships
1.  What smaller things make up the
whole?
2.  For each part, what would happen to
the whole if it were missing?
3.  What is the function of each part?


I decided to try to apply this to my own understanding as to what made up a conference such as this thinking one. My feeling was that these are powerful learning experiences and wanted to critically look at why. The tool did help me to come to the following personal viewpoint after this is a look at the process map I used. The graphic organisers and perspective tools add to the depth of thinking I think.

Relating Part to Whole

The reasons we attend conferences or professional learning is to add to existing understandings and create potentials. These experiences might provide preferred futures for ourselves our learners, schools and communities. One such opportunity is an international conference which has a particular place due to its unique features. The motion involved: travel, pilgrimage, exposure to new faces and new ideas creates an immersive environment that goes beyond the keynote and workshops. There is invigoration and determination to take as much away from this opportunity. Keynote speakers generally represent considered authority and bring together contempories to challenge each others thinking. These people set some of the big questions for the audience to consider and bring an authority and respectability to the event. The programme brings focus to the ideas and concepts concerned in a way that other learning situations are unlikely to achieve.

Part Whole Thinking

Roberts co-authored this book which maybe worth a look: ‘Infusing the teaching of Critical and Creative Thinking into Content Instruction” by Robert Swartz & Sandra Parks (The Critical Thinking Co.) It can be purchased online from The Learning Network NZ.

100 Hour Challenge

I am undertaking a hundred hour challenge.
I will be blogging about this to report progress.

• Ewan McIntosh’s Challenge
• What is my Challenge?
• Why this Challenge?
  

Ewan McIntosh Laid out a hundred hour challenge

Don't just read this post. Do something.

Here’s my challenge. Right now, put aside 100 hours starting at some point in the next twelve months. Do it right now, in your head. Put that time aside. 100 hours. 7 hours a week for 14 weeks. One hour a day, or one working day a week. It’s one term out of your entire life, it’s nothing. Okay, you’ve got that 100 hours?

Now for the next two days, go to talks (or listen to them online) and start conversations with people you don’t know, and choose what to spend your 100 hours on.

I guarantee that everyone reading this can produce something or has some special skill, and maybe they’re not even aware of it.

Ask your friends, colleagues and students what their’s is. Find out, because you’ll get ideas about what to learn yourself, and decide what to spend your 100 hours on.

Because when you contribute, when you participate in culture, when you’re no longer solving problems, but inventing culture itself, that is when life starts getting interesting.

Full blog post link

And mine is … D R U M   R O L L please

What is it?

The stakes are high because I have chosen to help my son Jack who wants to publish a book.
I am reading, talking with him and finding out about him a little more. We are working in online spaces
and face to face. Who’d have thought collaborating with each other in the same house and much of it online.

This is Jack.

Why this Challenge?
Jack has always written and I have not always read this writing. As a parent I have often been too busy and perhaps too self absorbed. This was an opportunity to give time to Jack around a mutual interest. I believe that young people are capable of more than we give them credit for. Jack’s story was over 60 pages when I suggested the challenge. A barrier to taking this further is an audience an editor and a mentor. I have decided to become involved, is this a good decision? When someone’s passions are at stake any mentor coach has the ability to make or break motivation.
We will see ….

Here are a couple of extracts form Jack’s Writing

Shaking my head, I tried to rid the noise from my ears like an animal tries to rid a fly from its back.

I was hardly aware of my body slipping down the slope, rolling over rubble and rocks as my eyes closed shut, and my ability to stay conscious abandoned me.

How Good is Good enough?

 
“A school or schools operating in isolation is no longer good enough in my mind.”
Why? this is the way things have always been done and it has worked.

The potential understanding of what is out there has changed we often apply this to our understanding of students learning.
At the school level we are now seeing this take place and I am happy to be part of groups that are trying to network develop and connect on behalf of their regions.
In New Zealand I think we are on the right track with regional capacity being developed by the key stakeholders. Regional groups extend pre-existing clusters and therefore connectivity. 
A fantastic example of this is

Manaiakalani an Auckland Community who are achieving multi dimensional improvements for their community.
The result is a ambitious project that is looking to bring 1:1 to a community without huge financial resources and includes wireless internet access to homes supported by Housing New Zealand.

This community is trying to transform itself led it seems by the Tamaki Transformation Programme Board. The complexity of successful change makes it vital that we look beyond ourselves and look to others while understanding that the sharing.

So what are the features of this project that we could look to for our preferred futures????

• Long term vision and community ownership of outcomes
• No constraining of dreams big expansive goals such as bringing connectivity to students in their homes
• Working with multiple agencies and supports
  • Housing New Zealand
  • Work and Income New Zealand
  • External consultancies eg Hapara putting interface layer over google docs that is purpose built for learners and schools.
  • 
  • Folksonomies by this I mean communities of goodwill eg software developers
• Focus on student achievement and well being
• Connected thinking and community

So what do we need to do?
At a regional level we can use presently operating networks such as principals associations and curriculum interest groups and add to them further collaborations with. Think LONG TERM 

• The willing
• Charitable Trusts
• Regional and local councils
• Multiple Govt agencies
• Libraries
• Tertiary institutions
• Community Educational Leaders

I like this video which tells a story about why collaborations are so powerful

 

Kia Kaha Manaiakalani

digital citizen ideas from Derek Wenmoth

Education Quotes

Please help me collect some of the great educational quotes. You can even make your own ones up. If you are good ;-)

Looking for acceptable use with head in sand

I was at the Ulearn conference recently where several learners were talking about having a voice, being heard and saying what you think. In these times of change; debate and honesty are needed because the present reality is not the preferred future (the outcome of these debates will determine our direction into the unknown.)
In one workshop, on edupunk a discussion was raised suggesting that because of the danger of pornography and misuse students should not be allowed to have mobile devices in the learning environment. I found myself getting agitated while listening to someone outlining the issue who seemed incredibly reticent to allow mobile devices within the school system due to this risk. Mobile devices are ubiquitous and they are becoming “T H E  M A J O R  P E R S O N A L” connectivity mechanism.
There is much talk about schooling becoming irrelevant and while I think this is far from the case I would like to argue here that these risks may gain traction in an education system that doesn’t accept its role has changed and that an approach to internet safety must embrace change from within; utilising an ecological approach.

Engage or lose relevance

On a weekday 6 hours is the average time spent in school 18 are spent in the outside world. Sure there is the little matter of sleep and eating but the figure above speaks for itself. When we consider that access to learning technologies is probably greater outside of the school we have a curriculum of self direction. The options for good and bad, sustainable and unsustainable, moral and immoral, positive and negative, creative and consumerist are boundless outside of school. Students are learning more than ever outside of our gates. Our separation of the technological means used in the two environments is an untenable position in the long term and I propose - in the here and now. In waiting to be prepared we may lose our opportunity be part of the ecological development.

The Youth/Teens ie our Students have A participatory culture.

This participatory culture is “a culture with relatively low barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement, strong support
for creating and sharing one’s creations, and some type of informal mentorship whereby what
is known by the most experienced is passed along to novices.A participatory culture is also
one in which members believe their contributions matter, and feel some degree of social connection
with one another (at the least they care what other people think about what they have
created). Forms of participatory culture include:
Affiliations — memberships, formal and informal, in online communities centered
around various forms of media, such as Friendster, Facebook, message boards,
metagaming, game clans, or MySpace).
Expressions — producing new creative forms, such as digital sampling, skinning and
modding, fan videomaking, fan fiction writing, zines, mash-ups).
Collaborative Problem-solving — working together in teams, formal and informal,
to complete tasks and develop new knowledge (such as through Wikipedia, alternative
reality gaming, spoiling).
Circulations — Shaping the flow of media (such as podcasting, blogging).”  taken from the confronting the challenges
report from the Mc Aurthur Foundation

Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century

The same report suggests the following and reading it helps me think what our preferred future might be:

“Rather than dealing with each technology in isolation, we would do better to take an ecological
approach, thinking about the interrelationship among all of these different communication
technologies, the cultural communities that grow up around them, and the activities they support.”

My Beliefs are that given the cultural communities that exist for young people are so connected they have the potential to bypass and ignore a formal education system.

Our steps towards a preferable future

• Engage with students in the creation of an AUP that focuses on a vision for digital citizenry
• Understand and explore what kids are doing in the 21st century
• Help learners to learn from each other and from wider connections
• Develop utility and understanding of the contribution points for connected mobile devices
• Allow students to develop and explore suitable ethics and use
• Provide faster cheaper safer (ie filtered but not stifled ) connectivity for mobile devices in our school
• Learn ourselves
• Accept new curriculum
• Take risks (“the best way to predict the future is to make it”)

What this does not mean

This does not mean that learners can have whatever content they like on their phones etc but rather that we understand we will maximise both learning and shared values through adopting acceptable use based on http://www.utechtips.com/aup-driven-by-vision-not-protection/

What Kids Are Doing - check 1 -

Kids are sophisticated media producers....

if we let them

if we let them share with each other

if we give them an audience

How do we lift their level even higher?

IT takes some planning

Colin Warner & Lynn Davie

Glen Waverly college, Victoria Dept Ed

Asked to consider where our schools are on this

Elements that may effect development

Vision, Professional Learning, Ownership, Res & Org, Action Plan, Review

No vision = confusion
No PL = anxiety
No ownership = gradual change
No Res and org = frustration
No Action plan = inconsistency
No Review = unknown impact

What Stephen Heppell said learners thought made them feel good about the process

eccentricity
making something
having an audience
collaboration

I liked Colin talking about making sure teachers see a big variety of
practise examples. Also this is a nice simple view of what we need to be doing as a process.

 

Would have liked to have seen more student’s voice in this  workshop
and perhaps a look into the learning that was the result of the process.

Googledocs a quick learn

We are starting to use google docs for our students

Why for those who are not sure?

Once we get over the wow look at this, look at that; we need to focus on how to improve learning.

Nick Rate has a good idea for writing the pic below links to his full post with examples.

Colours could also be used to identify (multiple concurrent authors is powerful learning just ask Vygotsky)

• ownership
• parts of speech
• editing process
• thought process
• de bonos thinking hats
• perspectives
• main ideas
• disagreement
• discussion points

This Google presentation has some other good ideas

 

I am working with some teachers on this tomorrow and it needs to be about teaching and learning

the good thing with google docs is I know it can be just that.

Easi-speak Guide

There are some good introductions to the USB easi-speak microphone on

Lorraine’s and Dorothy’s blogs.

The following was recorded easy on the easi-speak

I think these are going to do great things for literacy where teachers cotton on to it

 

I have just copied some pics from the manual which is stored as a pdf on the

microphone itself. most of it is self evident but I have highlighted the bits I wasn’t sure of.

 

 

See you later I’m off to record some stuff add ideas for the mic’s use in comments if you like. Those of you at Southwell can borrow them from the ICT hub and I am happy to come and help out if you are interested.

Iframe YouFrame Weframe

Part of the connected nature of the web is the ability to embed and display image flash etc. Heath Sawyer aka heheboy showed me what he was doing with iframes in one of the wetpaint wikis he is working with for the Matamata ictpd Cluster. Iframes are a good way to include one webpage in another.

The code looks like this

Basic iFrame HTML Code is in red I just copied it and changed the yourdomain to put the I love learning site in a frame below.

<IFRAME NAME=" my_iframe " SRC=" http://www.yourdomain.com" WIDTH="90%" HEIGHT="300px"> <p> Browsers and spiders that can't read iframe code will see this text instead.</p> </IFRAME>

Here's what each part means:

SRC - The URL of the page that you are including in the iframe.

HEIGHT - The height of the iframe. This can be expressed in pixels or percentages.

WIDTH - The width of the iframe. This can be expressed in pixels or percentages.

NAME - The name of the iframe.

Optional iFrame Properties

If you want more control over the look and behavior of your iframe, you can choose to add the following iframe properties to the code.

• SCROLLING - Should the iframe content scroll? Possible values are "yes", "no", or "auto".

• FRAMEBORDER - Would you like a border around the iframe? Possible values are "yes" or"no".

• ALIGN - How should the iframe be positioned in relation to surrounding content? Possible values are "left", "right","top", "middle" or "bottom". - Note: This setting is depreciated in favor of styles

• MARGINWIDTH - The horizontal internal margin for the iframe. Must be expressed as pixels.

• MARGINHEIGHT - The vertical internal margin for the iframe. Must be expressed as pixels.

• HSPACE - The horizontal spacing around the iframe. Must be expressed as pixels.

• VSPACE - The vertical spacing around the iframe. Must be expressed as pixels.

• LONGDESC - The URL of the page with a long description of the iframe contents. Must be expressed as a URL.

Here is an example of an inline frame with many of the optional iframe properties set:

<IFRAME NAME="my_iframe" SRC="http://www.yourdomain.com " WIDTH="90%" HEIGHT="300px" SCROLLING="NO" MARGINWIDTH="10px" MARGINHEIGHT="10px" FRAMEBORDER="0"> <p>Browsers and spiders that can't read iframe code will see this text instead .</p> </IFRAME>

The Dog Woke Me, The Blog called Me

It’s 2.59 and the dog has come around to the front of the house and woken me. There have been a lot of thoughts in my head about blogging its relationship to learning and now am in front of the computer putting them down.

 

A New Zealand teacher posted some pictures of students running a cross country. The purpose of this was for parents to be able to see their children and the children to see themselves online. What followed was a series of opinions criticising the use images and names and implying the teacher should not be blogging because of lack of understanding of net safety and protocol. What a post on whaleoil's blog shows in my mind the need to prepare for comment or controversy where we least expect it.

Can we just grow up in public?

We engage in blogging to change our personal or community worlds. A post is out in the global domain may  be seen as a statement even if we don’t intend it to be. A process is taking place where we are often adjusting our thinking, forming opinions and learning.

• What happens if we don’t follow protocol?
• We say something that our schools for example don’t believe in?
• What happens if we make a mistake?, Have a bad moment?
• What happens if someone takes issue with what we have to say?
• What are the risks if we are blogging at school as a classroom community?

Firstly I do not believe the greatest risks are from Stalkers or paedophiles as some would have us think. A photo and a student’s first name is a responsible risk. In New Zealand the ministry of education guidelines for inclusion of images is here. With parents permission there is no issue here.  The teacher posted some pictures of students running a cross country. The purpose of this was for parents to be able to see their children.The greatest risk I see with blogging are pedants and nitpickers.

To help survive this risk

• find out about blogging from an experienced leader, doer and thinker such as Dorothy Burt
• try to make sure our words make sense (not always a strong point of mine)
• read other class blogs and online material
• realise that our audience may not be who we think they are
• care mostly about our preferred audience (the one we want to engage)
• develop a thick skin i.e. accept that we may fail at first but that is not a bad thing
• moderate comments if it is a class blog or students
• think about the content of other online presences we may have and how they are linked eg facebook

Also realise the benefits of blogging

We can see blogging changing peoples personal worlds and creating

 

Blogging should be innately positive because it is based on choice

With so many people choosing to express themselves there seems a good match to

William Glassers model of Survival. Are we blogging for Survival? I have used this model

a few times and acknowledge Joan Dalton and David Anderson who introduced me to it.

So keep up the blogging or start if you wish to.

For Me I am looking to Work out what it means for our school as a community this term.

There are some more thoughts here in a guide to educational blogging from Microsoft.

And a more comprehensive reflection http://learningweb2.wikispaces.com/Important+considerations

Look out for Nerd Girl

Look out for Nerd Girl aka Kristine Kopelke.

I am going to see if we can get Nerd Girl to come to New Zealand. When I attend workshops presentations I see two main possibilities for them to be highly successful in changing my thinking practice or beliefs.

The first possible type of Professional Learning Success...

This is achieved by facilitating dialogues within a group where people share ideas reflect on big questions or are somehow active and learning by doing. There was great dialogue on the last day of MISC09 where participants rotated around the room with one member staying one going clockwise and one anti-clockwise. The questions presented were along the lines of

1. What insight have you got from the first two days that resonates with you?
2. What actions might you take on your return?

Why this professional learning works is likely because it addresses William Glasser survival understanding.

People feel empowered that they belong etc.

This is the type of professional learning that should be provided 80 % of the time. I hope facilitators understand this as a key understanding for working with learners.

The second possible type of Professional Learning success...

Is where the facilitator delivers their view point experiences and ideas in a more (sage on the stage style). For this to work I feel the presenter needs to use a unique lens (perspective) or reflection method to create something meaningful new and insightful for the audience.This second way is far more hit and miss: sometimes the presenter is delivering on a concept we don't understand, already understand or does so in a way that doesn't demonstrate originality or added value. Originality is about slight differences and comes from looking at something in a different way across disciplines and in exploration. This type of delivery will often lead to large differences in satisfaction between one audience member and another.

I thought Kristine was very good because her perspective was fresh yet logical: to look at what students are presently doing on the web as an insight into what we might get them to do and for what purpose.

What students were doing that struck a chord

If we are going to improve learning for students personalise learning and achieve higher potentials we need to pay heed to these ideas as mechanisms to assist students in our school environments.

The full presentation can be found here

Kristine Bluetoothed the presentation to a number of attendees flash enabled phones.

The application below will run on most Flash enabled mobile phones and can also be navigated through online by using the enter, arrow and number keys on the keyboard.

Right click here and select Save target as to download the app for your Flash enabled mobile phone or device.

To view the app here online, click on it with your mouse and then use the enter, arrow and number keys on your keyboard to navigate through the application.

Links for Kristine

Something that begins with play

Contact: Kristine Kopelke -

Tel: 5459 4590
Learning Innovation Centre Sunshine Coast
URL: http://www.earlyphaseicts.com

http://www.flashclassroom.com